I’ve watched a huge number of England defeats over the years, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt as frustrated as I do today. England are a far superior side to Sri Lanka. There, I said it.
If the two sides were combined, I’d take Mahela Jayawardene, Sangakkara (and maybe Dilshan for Strauss) the rest of the XI would be English. None of the Sri Lankan bowlers would get close to an England second XI. In the words of Michael Vaughan, their two seamers would struggle to make division one county sides. Yet still, we somehow managed to lose – badly.
Full credit should go to Jayawardene for his match winning hundred in the first innings, and Herath bowled well for someone so limited, but England threw this match away with needless mistakes.
Monty Panesar’s humiliating drops cost us eighty runs (the first came before Jayawardene had made his hundred). And yesterday a Stuart Broad noball cost us fifty – the number of runs the last wicket pair added after the Sri Lankan wicket keeper was recalled.
England were also plagued by bad luck in the second innings. Cook, Bell and Prior can all consider themselves unlucky. Bell in particular should not have been given out lbw. The ball would have missed the stumps. Prior was out to a freak catch – having middled a sweep shot the ball somehow lodged itself in short leg’s guts. Credit should go to the fielder for his anticipation, but it still takes an outrageous slice of luck for those chances to stick.
Having said that, England only have themselves to blame. They lost the match by batting like absolute pelicans in the first innings. They have no excuse for this. Sri Lanka have a popgun attack and the pitch was decent for batting.
So having won four tests in a row against India at home last summer, we’ve now lost four on the bounce away from home. This latest defeat has come against a side that haven’t been able to buy a win in recent times. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so exasperated at the end of a cricket match. An England team that could do no wrong now can’t get anything right.
We had an excuse in the UAE. Saeed Ajmal is the best bowler in the world. Given the low bounce and some simply dreadful umpiring (I’m sorry, but KP was right when he said the umpires were giving the benefit of doubt to the bowlers), England fans could put that series down to an aberration.
However, an aberration, by definition, is a one-off. This latest defeat puts that theory to bed. Our batsmen simply cannot adhere to the basics. You play the turning ball by playing straight. You hit the ball down the ground and use your feet when needed. Premeditated sweeps are flicks through the legside against the spin are a recipe for disaster. It’s sheer idiocy.
Something is seriously wrong. In this match, Herath became the first orthodox left-arm spinner to take twelve wickets in a test against England since 1952. Ask yourself this: is Herath anywhere near the best left-armer we’ve faced for sixty years? He isn’t even one of the best two spinners playing in this match. Swann and Monty have much better test records.
It just goes to show that the best team doesn’t always win. The team that plays the best does.
James Morgan
Perhaps the problem is that our batsmen have had their best games against Australia with a mediocre pace asttack and no serious spinner. Years ago, in the bad old days, batsmen like Robin Smith and Willey were selected to face Countries with strong pace attacks and were then left out for betters players of spin to face the Asian Teams with no pace attacks but good spinners.
Can’t wait to get you guys over in India:
7-0 in the ODIs. Stamp it.
4-0 in the tests at the rate at which you guys play spin. (Usually though, 2 pitches in a four game series are batathons so 2-0 would be my usual prediction).
Okay fine, you can have the one T20 as usual. As a consolation prize. A thanks for coming gift, if you like.
England might have lost 4 tests in a row overseas, but India have lost 8. And they lost those games by far bigger margins.
why havent you talked about the revelations of mohammed amir in his interview with mike atherton .It really was a fascinating insight and im inclined to believe him.It doesnt seem credible that he would take such a risk for £2,500?
If only we had more time. We did plan to write something about Amir, as his story was fascinating. Apologies for that.
Thilan Samaraweera averages 53 (higher than any England player), and just scored 2 hundreds in South Africa and he wouldn’t get into a joint Eng-SL team?
That is a very interesting stat. I think England fans perspective has been warped because Samaraweera has such a terrible record against England. We are yet to see the best of him. Of course, it all depends where the match is taking place. If it’s in Asia somewhere, I think we’d take the entire Sri Lankan top 6 ;-)